Fallout 4's Boston Location Was Decided Before Skyrim Launched

Even though developer Bethesda just announced Fallout 4 in June, the game has been in development for a long time. So long, in fact, that its Boston setting was decided before the studio launched its last game, Skyrim.

In an interview with GameSpot at Quakecon, Bethesda’s Marketing VP Pete Hines told us that the studio started thinking about Fallout 4 as soon as Fallout 3 was released in 2008. Hines said that the decision for Fallout 4 to take place in Boston was made before Skyrim was released. “Long ago,” he explained when asked about the timeline of that choice. “Pre-Skyrim… The ideas for Fallout 4 started right after Fallout 3 and have gotten worked on and been percolated since 2008… We’re talking about its infancy, we’re talking about jotting some stuff down, we’re talking about, ‘I want to do it in Massachusetts, and have it be about this, this, and this.'”

However, he went on to say that Fallout 4’s development began in earnest after the studio had supported Skyrim for several years. “The point at which it really kicked into development whenever it was when we put up the post that said, ‘Hey, we’re done with Skyrim and moving onto the next project,'” Hines said. “Once we were done with all of that, it was like, ‘Alright, now it’s Fallout 4 full-throttle.'” The post in question was published in April 2013, when Bethesda stated that its DLC plans for Skyrim were done and that it was changing to a new game.